Look Always Toward the Sunlight
by PervyMonk
Summary: Two survivors find the journal of an infected, 32 years after the end of The Last of Us.


Chapter One: Sunlight

_Look always toward the sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you.-_Walt Whitman

* * *

_Approximately 2066 AD or 53 years after the end_

"'My name is Ellie, and I'm immune.'"

"Bullshit," Grayson's voice echoes, sounding slightly distorted since his head is stuck rummaging around in a cabinet. "Everyone turns within two days-you know that, Esperanza."

"Shhh," the girl hisses, an old and weather notebook clutched in her tiny hands. "That's only the first line." Grayson pulls his head out from the cabinet with most of a bottle of rubbing alcohol in his hand.

"Then it's bullshit from the very first line."

"_Shhh,"_ she hisses again. Grayson rolls his eyes but motions her to continue.

"'I know what you're thinking-bullshit, right? Everyone turns after they become infected. Some within the hour, others are either lucky enough or stupid enough to last a couple of days. But sometimes the infection goes wrong-or right, depending on your point of view. It infects a person, but it doesn't affect their mind. It doesn't take hold the way it should. So then you get people like me-infected but not crazy."

"Bullshit," Grayson mutters under his breath again. Esperanza pointedly ignores him and keeps reading.

"'I got bit when I was fourteen. I don't know how old I am now-pretty fucking old, would be my guess. Maybe in my late thirties, early forties, maybe even fifty, like Joel was when we met. All I know is it's been a long time since I left Jackson. "

"That a person," Grayson asks, prying open another cabinet that had been nailed shut. "Or a place?"

"I dunno," Esperanza says. "We'd probably know if you'd hush up and let me read." He waves his hand dismissively but allows her to continue reading. What she had found interested him-more than a bullshit story should, anyway.

"'After Joel died, there was no place for me there. He, Tommy and Maria protected me, kept my immunity hidden from the others. Without Joel, I didn't feel like it was fair to ask Tommy and Maria to continue do the same. Besides, the fungi was beginning to sprout out of my arm and I couldn't keep dodging questions about why I wore long sleeved shirts, even in the summer, forever.

Besides, I didn't want what happened with Fortuna to happen to anyone else. Her death is on me and me alone.

Even with my immunity, death has never been far from my doorstep. Mom. Riley. Tess. Sam. Henry. Marlene. Fortuna. Joel. People have died for me and because of me. God, I thought Joel would be the last man standing. He always had been before. I swear I let myself think he was immortal.

Joel was a one man army. He's killed more people than I've ever met in my life. Hunters and Fireflies alike seemed to tremble at the mention of his name, as though he were a monster made flesh-well, more of a monster than the infected, anyway.'"

"Wait wait wait," Grayson says, turning to look at her. Esperanza shields her eyes from his flashlight. "_Fireflies? _Now I know this is full of shit."

"They used to exist," Esperanza says. "Maybe they still do."

"Nothing but a damned pipe dream," Grayson says. "A pipe dream and monsters wearing the tattered remains of their unifying symbol."

"Rick believed."

"Yeah, and now I have to go find his dumb ass as usual," Grayson says, his mood souring further. He sits down on a rotted mattress in a huff, glaring at the back of Esperanza's black hair. "Well? Is there anymore?"

"A bit, yeah," she says, shining her flashlight on the page. "Let's see, where was I? Ah! Here

'Joel always said that he was simply lucky, and that luck would run out someday. It eventually did during a bandit raid on the dam. Raids were always more frequent when we had the power running.'"

"A dam," Grayson says.

"I don't get it," Esperanza says, her brow furrowed.

"Before, there were these things called 'dams' built on rivers. They blocked water from flowing, but they also used it to make electricity."

"Like our flashlights?" the girl asks, shaking hers slightly. The light gets a little brighter, and now Grayson is the one shielding his eyes.

"Yeah, but on a bigger scale. Watch where you're pointing that, will you?"

"Sure," she says simply, turning it back to the paper.

"'They came at us during the night, like moths attracted to fire. We didn't lose many people, but we lost enough. We lost Joel. Motherfucker kept fighting even with a knife in his lung. Afterwards, he could barely talk. More blood than sound was coming out of his mouth. I'll never forget the way Tommy looked at me over Joel, struggling to breathe and grasping for me. I remember reaching for his hand, clasping it in mine because he was too weak to hold my hand back. My fingers were sticky with his blood. He could only speak in broken sentences, garbled speech that I could barely understand.

'Baby girl', I heard, even though I hadn't been a child in over fifteen years.

'I lied', I heard, although I knew. I knew from the beginning that he had lied.

'I couldn't'. What he couldn't do he had never said and I had never known until later, when I was going through his things.

'I'm sorry'. He never had to apologize to me although I couldn't force myself to say it with the tears built up in my throat like so much blood and bad history.

'I love you.' He had never said so before, but I always knew that too. Even before I knew he lied to me, I knew he loved me."

"Jesus," Grayson says, shifting uncomfortably. He never handled loss well, even other people's.

"Hang on," Esperanza says. "The words are a little smudged." She squints, and Grayson doesn't mention the way his flashlight catches the water glistening on her cheeks.

"'In the moment, I loved and hated Joel more than I ever had in my life. I loved him as though he were my flesh and blood father. He had done everything to keep me safe and my life had been better for knowing him, despite the many times I had cut myself on his hard edges. And I hated him for taking me from the Fireflies so many years ago, when they still had a presence on this earth that wasn't simply myth and were capable of trying to change the world.

They could have used my immunity for a vaccine but, as I found out, they would have killed me. They didn't need Ellie the girl-they need my brain, with its strange sort of infection. Joel hadn't been completely dishonest when he said there were others like me-he had just neglected to mention that they had all been killed in the name of finding a cure.

Isn't that fucked up? Killing the few people who became immune to try and create a vaccine? 'Kill the few to save the many'. It's never been a philosophy I am fond of.

But I would have done it, I would have let it happen if it meant even the slightest chance of success. But Joel couldn't stand it. He killed the many to save me. And I couldn't get to him in time to stop the knife from piercing his lung.

The hunter who killed him survived the attack. But not for long.

Not once I got my teeth into him.'" Esperanza turns the page and lets up a disappointed noise.

"Aw man," she says, lifting the notebook up. "I hate cliffhangers." Grayson takes a deep breath and stands, making sure his pistol is loaded.

"Well, that's that then," he says, moving toward the door of the shack. "Come on kiddo, let's get a move on." She nods a little sullenly and keeps her bow in her hands. He pushes the door open and a wave of sunlight crashes over them. They begin to walk toward the sunrise. What was that poem his brother always recited?

"We have miles to go before we sleep," he says softly, the words both achingly familiar and unknown in the same breath.

"Hey, Grayson?" Esperanza asks, kicking a small stone out of her way.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she made it?"

"Think who made it?" he asks, looking over at her. He's known too many 'she's' who didn't make it.

"Ellie," she says. "The girl from the journal."

"Well," he starts, and he's about to tell her not to worry about fictional girls who may or may not have been insane with fever and infection. But something about the look on her face makes him change his tone.

"I reckon she's just fine," he says softly. "Who knows, maybe we'll find my brother and the Fireflies, and she'll be there, helping to make a vaccine." Esperanza brow only furrows a little but some of the shadows get chased away from her eyes.

He could look toward the light once in a while to keep hers from going out.


End file.
